Owning a piece of Okanagan real estate comes with a connection to Lake Okanagan and there is no place where that is truer than in Peachland. There is a natural connection to the water in this peaceful town.

Residents don’t have to live beside the lake to have lakefront property. The views from decks are spectacular. You can smell the clear, refreshing waters everywhere. Drive down the mountain and you see the lake, drawn to its captivating beauty.

Take a stroll down Beach Avenue and it becomes clear why townsfolk call the community ‘Peachland on the Lake’. All summer long, the lake is home to sailboats and power boats, water skiers, wakeboarders and tubers.

Peachland’s jewel is its waterfront. A two-kilometre waterfront walkway is now under construction that will become a walker’s paradise along the town’s lakeshore – 11 kilometres of pebble beaches, most publicly accessible. Numerous docks are available for boat parking or the as the launching point for a dip in the lake. The Peachland Marina has one of the few marine gas facilities on the west side of the lake and residents and visitors can rent boats and personal watercraft.

The municipal day wharf downtown is the perfect place to moor a boat for a short stay in Peachland. From there it’s just a short walk to the many small shops and fine restaurants along Beach Avenue. The town maintains three boat launches along the lakeshore and there are miles of beach available for sunning and swimming.

Built on a mountainside, Peachland gently hugs the lakeshore, giving a real sense of lakefront property everywhere one goes. This is where a connection to the lake is natural and Okanagan real estate is at its finest.

If Okanagan wine tours are on your to do list, Peachland is the perfect place to start. The valley has many wineries along its 177 km (110 mile) length, and Peachland real estate is located dead center.

Ponderosa’s new Okanagan homes are well located in Peachland for winery day trips to Vernon in the north and Osoyoos to the south. You can walk through a vineyard, tour a production facility, taste the many varieties of Okanagan wines and even learn how the valley’s wines became internationally recognized.

Thirty years ago, Okanagan wines came in two varieties (red or white), were bottled in jugs with screw caps and the jugs often came glued inside a wicker basket. The jug wines were sweet, cheap and came with corny names like Hot Goose and Fuddle Duck. Times have changed.

In the late 1980s, free trade meant increased competition for Okanagan wines. There were just 14 wineries operating in all of B.C. and vintners took a gamble, ripping out their hardy French hybrid vines and replanting their vineyards with traditional noble vinifera grapes.

Today there are more than 120 wineries in the Okanagan Valley, which is now the second largest wine producing region in North America – a distinction that has earned the valley the moniker Napa North.

Long gone are the jugs and screw caps. Today, Okanagan wines hold their own on the international stage, winning numerous awards for merlots, chardonnays and ice wines. In 2008, West Kelowna’s Mission Hill Family Estate winery won the International Icewine Trophy for producing the world’s best icewine. The same year, Kelowna’s Summerhill Pyramid Winery won a gold medal in France’s Chardonnay du Monde competition. And 2009 marked the eighth year in a row than an Okanagan winery was awarded the Canadian Winery of the Year title from Wine Access magazine.

Okanagan wine tours can start with North America’s largest organic winery, Summerhill, and its famous pyramid, where every bottle of wine is transformed by ancient geometry. Travel 15 minutes to Mission Hill, in West Kelowna, with its stunning view of Lake Okanagan and its Terrace Restaurant – named one of the top five winery restaurants in the world by Travel and Leisure magazine.

Head south from Mission Hill to Peachland and then drive into desert country. You’ll find numerous small estate wineries with delicious offerings and quirky names. Discover Blasted Church, Burrowing Owl, Tinhorn Creek and Twisted Tree – wineries each with their own unique story. Just 20 minutes south of Peachland is the former Scherzinger Vineyards, which rebranded itself into high sales with its new name, Dirty Laundry.

Today the valley has regions for Okanagan wine tours that offer day trippers the chance to experience collections of wineries in one area. There’s Summerland’s Bottleneck Drive, the Naramata Bench Winery Association outside of Penticton, the Corkscrew Drive group near Okanagan Falls and the widely-known Golden Mile Bench, home to a handful of wineries in the semi-arid Oliver area.

Own a piece of Peachland real estate and experience the authentic Okanagan. Ponderosa’s centrally located, new Okanagan homes are the perfect place to begin a winery tour adventure and to wrap up a touring day on a peaceful deck, enjoying the view and sipping a great vintage or two.

Check out www.okanagan.com to see how Peachland’s Ponderosa is perfectly located for Okanagan wine tours.